All Hot Wire CVD Organic/Inorganic Hybrid Barrier Layers for Thin Film Encapsulation

A water vapor barrier layer is presented that is deposited entirely at temperatures below ∼100oC. Our method, using hot wire chemical vapor deposition (HWCVD), is effective in reducing the issue of pinholes in single layers of silicon nitride (SiNx) made at such low substrate temperatures. We succeeded in depositing an all hot-wire simple three-layer structure consisting of two low-temperature SiNx layers with a polymer layer in between, exhibiting a water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) as low as 5*10-6 g/m2/day, determined at a temperature of 60°C and a relative humidity of 90%. This WVTR is low enough for organic and polymer devices. In a second experiment the robustness of the barrier layer is shown with respect to environmental dust.